Friends 'Til the End
by Riniel Haerion
Summary: They had been friends since the beginning, when his head was a wild mess of curls and her hair was in pigtails.


Blonde pigtails were swinging side to side. Blue eyes were wide and sparkling. Dawn was excited. It was going to be her very first day of school. She was as excited as humanly possible when she sat down in her small plastic chair and looked around the cheerful classroom. She twirled a strand of hair, and took notice that every single child seemed to be sitting with a buddy, chatting happily.

Except for one. He looked really little, like he should still be in kindergarten. He was sitting all alone in his plastic chair looking down at the table instead of around at his classmates. He actually looked kinda sad. Dawn thought that he needed a friend. She stood up to walk towards him, but she felt another hand stop her. A girl with curly black hair shook her head at her.

"Eww, are you gonna go talk to Anders?" She asked, staring at Dawn wide-eyed. "Don't do that, he's a meanie face. No one likes him." She said in a quieter whisper.

Dawn blinked. "He doesn't look like a meanie face. He looks sad." She turned to look at him again. He was still in the same position.

Ignoring the other girl's words, she marched over to the little boy and sat down in the empty chair next to him. She scooted nearer and poked his shoulder. He didn't respond. She poked him again, and he looked up in surprise. He stared at her for a moment and opening his mouth a few times like he was gonna say something. Instead, she stuck her own little hand out.

"My name is Dawn. What's yours?" She tilted her head to the side.

"Anders..." He said quietly. "Why are you talking to me?"

"Because you looked sad." Dawn said, shrugging. "The other girls said you're a meanie face. But I don't think you look like a meanie face."

"They say that cuz sometimes I don't know when to stop talking. They say I end up saying mean things." Anders looked down. "I don't mean to though. It just happens."

Dawn patted his curly head. "It's okay. I do that sometimes too. If you want, I can be your friend!" She grinned widely at him, as the teacher started passing out crayons and paper.

Anders smiled back at her. She was happy that he was happy. And she grabbed some colors and started to work. He was happy to join her, and they spent nearly the entire day just talking about silly things like animals (Anders had a pet guinea pig, named Carmelita, and a bunch of pretty fish) or TV shows (Dawn watched a lot of weird political shows with her daddy.) And they walked out of the school that day with their arms hooked together, and Anders' big brother Mike seemed a little bit surprised when he was waiting for him, but he smiled at Dawn.

Dawn's mother stroked her hair. "Did you have a nice day, honey?"

Dawn grinned widely. "Yeah! I made a friend!"

"Anders, what the fuck are you doing? You're supposed to be working!" Dawn had had to literally go to Anders house just to make him actually work for once. She was lucky that she had a key to get in.

"I'm going to...Mike just sent me some things that he said would be relevant to my interests..." Anders said from his spot where he was sitting cross-legged on the ground.

Dawn stared at him. "It isn't anything...Raunchy, is it?"

Anders looked up at her and rolled his eyes. "No, look."

He held up a small photograph for Dawn to see, in it where two little kids. One girl, and one boy. The girl was familiar, dressed in all pink with hair in pig tails, and the boy had wild curly blond hair. She opened her mouth in a small 'o' when she realized.

"It's our pictures from when we were like six!" She almost immediately sunk down to her knees next to Anders to examine the box next to him. "Your brother kept all of this?"

Anders nodded. "Yeah...I thought we had lost all of it when we moved to Auckland...You know, when we were in high school. I never found it. I guess Mike put it in a box for safe keeping and only now just found it." Anders picked up a crayon drawing. "You drew this. For my birthday...I remember."

He held it out for Dawn to take. She remembered it as well. She had always been so jealous of Anders and his artistic ability, so when they were twelve, she had tried her hardest to draw Anders the best picture she could possibly make when he turned thirteen. Looking at the picture again, she was quite proud. It was probably the best thing she had ever drawn, and it had her sloppy signature in the corner.

"It's so weird...Seeing all this stuff again. I still remember when you'd pull on my pigtails to get my attention." She laughed.

"Well, you wouldn't listen to me otherwise. Now that I think about it, you didn't tolerate my shit as a child either. I guess we were meant to be best friends. You're the only one who could always keep me in line." Dawn punched him in the arm.

"That's true. Someone had to keep you in line." She rolled her eyes. "I still remember that first day of school. Some girl told me not to be friends with you. It makes me wonder what would have happened if I had listened to her."

"Well, you probably would have the most boring life. I mean, it'd just be you and your cat."

"I don't have a cat."

"Wow, you'd be even more lonely and bored."

Dawn punched Anders in the shoulder, reminiscent to what she always did when they were young. She did that quite a lot to shut him up. "Shut up Anders."

"It's your fault. You became friends with me."

"I'm starting to regret that at the moment."

They both stared at each other, before bursting into laughter. They couldn't help it. They really were friends. Since the beginning, and probably for even more years to come.


End file.
